Frigid weather keeps 10-bed Freeport shelter full

A converted classroom in the former Immanuel Lutheran School serves as a 10-bed emergency shelter for homeless men.

In an adjacent room, four men sit on couches and watch television on a large, flat-screen monitor. The shelter is open from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily, but guests are usually gone by early morning. However, because of the recent extreme cold and few other places to stay warm during the day in Freeport, the mission has let the men stay throughout the morning.

"We've been full all the time," said Wright, executive director of the Freeport Area Church Cooperative.

There are perhaps dozens of homeless people in Freeport. Some are on the street with no place to live. Others have no permanent address and "couch surf" nightly or weekly at a shelter or at the home of a friend or family member.

The nonprofit co-op of local churches also operates the Cherry Avenue Mission, a four-unit transitional-housing shelter on South Cherry Avenue for families; Hope House, a five-unit permanent supportive housing project on South Cherry for chronically homeless adults with disabilities; and Hero House, 218 W. Clark Ave., five apartments for chronically homeless veterans that opened in October.

The cooperative isn't equipped to serve every aspect of the area's homeless population.

Homeless women with children can find space at Cherry Avenue Mission, for example, but there's no place in Freeport for homeless single women with no children. This year, FACC leaders will discuss how to close that gap, Wright said.

Chicago Avenue Mission has been full for most of the year. It was previously in an apartment building on Liberty Avenue, but moved in October to the FACC's main office because the Liberty Avenue neighborhood was deemed dangerous. Tim McGraw, a night supervisor at the shelter, was shot and killed last summer while sitting with his daughter on a neighbor's porch not far from the shelter.

Last year, the mission served 44 men, and 24 of them moved on to permanent housing.

Julian Christianson, 23, hopes for the same fate. He left his hometown, Minneapolis, in September and came to Freeport "to be a better person." He's been staying at the Chicago Avenue Mission since January because there's no room for him at his pregnant fiancee's mother's house in Freeport.

Christianson is unemployed and looking for work. He wants to attend college and pursue a career in architecture. Or maybe advertising. But for now, he's happy to have a roof over his head.